HomeFeatured10 Google Analytics Custom Event Samples That You Can Use on Your Own

September 4, 2013

10 Google Analytics Custom Event Samples That You Can Use on Your Own

Google Analytics is one of the best SEO tools used by many SE specialists and analysts. It boasts many features that can keep you in track with the website you are trying to rank and the best out of it all, it’s FREE! As awesome as Google Analytics is with SEO, we had never fully revealed the true capabilities of its many functions.

What most analysts don’t know is that Google Analytics can be customized to fit your needs in tracking all your links and specifics on your website. Though it requires knowledge on custom JavaScript™ and several programming languages, Google Custom events can be a great addition to your Google Analytics reports.

Understanding the Google Custom Event

Before we move on to give you samples of Google custom events, let us brush up on how to understand the composition and necessary codes that surround the tool. Basically, Google Custom events is adding an HTML element to a certain part of a page or several pages and then using standard analytics JavaScript for data gathering.

Listed below is the hierarchy of a Google Analytics custom event:

Google Analytics Push. It is the part of the custom event that connects your HTML codes and signals Google analytics to send data to your account.

Category. To help you organize a page’s behavior or functionality, the category tag is simply what part of the website you need to track e.g. videos, ads, and links.

Action. It is what your users and viewers with a specific category or whatever you are tracking on a specific page e.g. plays, views, hovers, etc.

Labels. An optional tag that helps you “label” what you are tracking e.g. names of videos, links, zip codes, user-provided data, etc.

Value. Another optional tag that can be numerical in nature e.g. time, price, date, etc.

Interaction. This helps determine if your custom event affects your bounce rate. You can either name it as “true” or “false” to answer the question.

Best Custom Event for your Website

While making Google custom events can require knowledge in programming, once you get the hang of it, it can be pretty easy. Don’t worry; there are also several SE forums that would help you out in coding your own custom event for your website. To make it easier for you, here are Google Analytics custom events that your website could use:

Tracking Clicks that Aren’t Tracked on Google Analytics

This usually happens when a link is directly onto a PDF file that can be downloaded from the web. Since these pages don’t have analytics, you can easily track these type of clicks using this code:

Tracking Lightbox Clicks

Light boxes are a pop-up messages associated with users achieving something on your website such as signing up, purchasing, or logging in. This Google custom tool helps you with determining the click rate of your users who pushed through with the light box.

Tracking Affiliate Ads

While most online ad companies have custom HTML for their affiliates, this custom event can help you track of which ads are working best for you. This way you can work on ads that are making you more money and terminate ones that are less performing.

Tracking Errors on Your Website

Probably the most important Google custom event for your website, it helps you track errors that most of your users end up. By tracking this, you will know which errors are most common and then offering a solution to it by helping your consumers, creating a user-friendly environment.

Tracking Visitors who Ask Directions to Your Business

With the use of an embedded and Google maps, you can now track visitors who ask for directions to your business. It can give you an idea how an online campaign can affect offline sales in your business.

Tracking Your Video Interactions

Videos can be a great addition to your website, plus it helps with increasing your page visits and durations. However it can be difficult to track user interaction which can determine your traffic’s behavior in watching videos.

Article Tracking Consumption

Basing on individual user scrolls on your page, you can now track the percentage of users who are actually reading your blogs and articles. This way, you have more idea on what to write or how to write it.

There you have it, your top 10 best Google Analytics Custom events that you can use for your website. Another thing about these tools is that you can use your imagination in programming your own custom functions for Google analytics. If you are a little bit more adventurous, try giving it a shot!